Alone
by Emmaline87
Summary: Pantalaimon and Kirjava are away from Lyra and Will for the first time as they enter the land of the dead. Please R&R!
1. Alone

Pantalaimon lay, dog-formed, with his paws off the end of the jetty. He heard Lyra give one last passionate wail, and couldn't help himself; he joined in, howling. His beloved Lyra was leaving him, going to the land of the dead. He couldn't even see her anymore, the fog was so thick. He knew that Lyra felt like her heart had been torn out and left on the jetty, just as he felt that his heart was being taken away on the battered old rowboat, carried over the stagnant, green water. He felt like he really was a puppy, and had just received a sharp scolding from his master. He felt guilty, as if he were abandoning Lyra, instead of the other way around. He could feel the deep physical ache in his chest, just like when he and Lyra were children and had played games, trying to see how far they could go from each other. But much more acute this time was the fear that she might not come back, they might never see each other again. That she might die. He would go out, as he had seen the dæmons of dying people do before, just like a candle flame.  
  
He couldn't help himself; he let out a little wail. So did something else, beside him. He looked in the direction the other whine had come from, and saw another dæmon, dog-formed like himself, staring out toward the boat. Somehow, he knew without being told that she was Will's dæmon, and when he looked around, he saw Chevalier Tiyalis and Lady Salmakia's small dæmons sitting on the tops of the posts at either end of the jetty. The Chevalier's was a bee, Salmakia's was a hummingbird, and both looked stricken with grief. They knew the Gallivespians would die soon, and wondered if they would ever see them again. The three new dæmons had not even known they existed until they were torn away from those they loved.  
  
Pan sat there for a long time, he couldn't tell how long, until he could feel the boat that carried his beloved Lyra away from him approaching the shores of the land of the dead, and turned to the other dæmons.  
  
"I can't bear to just sit here until Lyra comes back. What are we going to do?" he asked them.  
  
Chevalier Tiyalis's bee dæmon was the first to respond. "I can feel that Tiyalis is close to death. I doubt we will ever be reunited. I have been everywhere with him, my whole life, not knowing I existed. But now, rather than keep up false hopes of seeing him again, I would like to return to my own world, the world of the Gallivespians, to live the rest of my life as happily as I can, separated from him . . ." She trailed off. If bees could cry, Pantaliamon was sure that she would be sobbing her eyes out.  
  
"I will do the same." Lady Salmakia's dæmon said. It was obvious he was trying his hardest to remain calm, but not doing a very good job of it. Pan couldn't blame him.  
  
Pan turned to Will's dæmon. "Let's go with them until we get there, then try to find a window into the world where Lord Asriel's rebellion is. That's where Will and Lyra will go, if they ever . . ." He choked and couldn't finish, ad Will's dæmon nodded solemnly.  
  
Suddenly he grew cold and clammy with fear. Lyra was hurt; he could feel it. He almost jumped off the jetty and tried to swim to her, but something was stopping him, something besides the danger of what could be lurking in the clouded water. An invisible force was holding him back. He tried to resist it, at first. He changed into a fish and tried to flop off of the jetty, but found he couldn't. He pushed against the force, and could nearly feel it weakening. He strained against it, harder and harder . . .  
  
"Pan!" Will's dæmon gasped, and grabbed his tail in her strong dog jaws, pulling him back.  
  
Pantaliamon's eyes were still ablaze with fear for Lyra and anger at the invisible force that stopped him from getting to her. "I had almost broken free, I could have swum to Lyra, she's hurt . . ." he trailed off, feeling sick with worry and rage.  
  
Will's dæmon's eyes were full of concern. "Pan, you were weakening. I could see it, you were about to go out, you almost died! You looked like you were dissolving, sort of. The barrier, whatever it is, won't let dæmons through. Like the boatman said, it must be the kind of law you can't change." They were both calming down from the hysteria a moment before. She nuzzled Pan softly, both to comfort him and to reassure herself that she was real, still alive without Will there.  
  
They sat there, on the deck for awhile, not sure what to do, when through the mist approached the decrepit rowboat that had taken Lyra, and so many others before her, to the land of the dead. At first Pan thought Lyra had come back for him, but he knew better than that: it was just the elderly boatman, coming back to wait for the next group of travelers to row to their new, eternal, home. When he came back and saw the four dæmons there, he didn't look surprised in the least, but said to Pantaliamon, "Little girl says she's coming back for you. No one's ever done it before, and I don't know why, but I believe her." He seemed to say the last part more to himself than to Pan. He got businesslike again. "She's not comin' this way, though, so you may as well wait somewhere else."  
  
So the four dæmons, feeling very lost and alone, set off to find a window out of the world of the dead. 


	2. A Window?

Author's Note: I know, it's been forever since my last update. Forgive me! By the way, this is an old chapter I wrote a while back and I haven't gotten around to posting until now. I doubt Ch. 3 will come out any time soon, if ever, so don't be too disappointed.  
  
*****  
  
That night, the four dæmons were weary from flying everywhere (Pantalaimon and Will's dæmon had changed into birds), looking for a window out of that world, and decided to see if the people in the "holding area" who had given them food and shelter the night before would be willing to give them a place to sleep again. They did, and the new dæmons viewed for the very first time with their own eyes the shriveled, bony deaths.  
  
The next day they set out again to look for a window out. They were sure that once they found a window out of the world of the dead, it would be much easier to find windows from whatever worlds they ended up in to the worlds they wanted to get to. There was one problem, however: finding a window out was proving very difficult. Pan was getting desperate; despite being very angry with Lyra, he wanted to be able to find her when she returned from the land of the dead, to know that she was safe.  
  
Being separated had changed the bond between them. They were still very much a part of each other, and he could feel her extreme emotions and pain, but he couldn't read her every thought as he could before, and they could concentrate on different things, which had been very difficult before. He thought of Bolvangar, when Lyra and Roger had schemed together, using Pan and Salcilia, Roger's dæmon, as a means of communication. Whenever Lyra had become interested in the conversation of the girls around her, he had had to slow down his conversation with Salcilia, and vice versa. But now they could concentrate on two separate things as easily as separate beings could. But we're not separate, Pan thought, we're still one person, together, not severed like Tony Makarios and his dæmon, Ratter were.  
  
Every time Pan thought about Lyra the ache in his chest grew more painful, and he grew more eager to find a window out of the dreadful gray world they seemed to be trapped in. The four trekked around the holding area, then up a path like the one they came down to get there. But nowhere could they find a window.  
  
*****  
  
Once, Pantaliamon thought he had seen a window. He approached it, looking more carefully. But, closer up, he saw that it had just been a trick of his mind.  
  
Then he got an idea. He remembered the concentrated state of mind that Lyra switched to whenever she used the alethiometer. She became oblivious to everything else, looking at and thinking of only the alethiometer and the question she was asking. He recalled then that her state of mind was much like Will's when he was cutting a window with the subtle knife. Pan wondered if perhaps he could use the same state of mind to help him find a window.  
  
He switched over to the serene, focused mind frame, shutting out everything else both inside his mind and outside it. He looked around, closely studying the area around him. Then, all of a sudden, out of nowhere, he saw a point.  
  
He was jolted out of his state of mind surprise, and, just as quickly, the point disappeared. He regained his bearings quickly, and slipped into the concentration again. Finding the point again, he examined it more closely. It was like the windows the subtle knife made, except this was so small that is looked as if it had been made by a tiny poke in the air with the knife. But something about it made Pan feel that the knife had not made it. He didn't think the knife could make such a small window. And, when he looked closely at the point, which was about a foot off the ground, he saw that, however tiny it was, its edges were rough, inexact, completely unlike the precise cuts made by the knife.  
  
He got as close as he could to the point, and still in his calm, concentrated state, he stared at it. He filled his thoughts with it, and though he did not then realize it, he was tugging on it with his mind. Before his very eyes, the point was getting bigger. Slowly at first, then with more confidence, he was pulling on it with his mind, tearing a sort of window.  
  
After working on it for several minutes, his mind became tired, and he slipped out of his trancelike state. He stood back and looked at his work: he had made a hole, nearly half an inch wide, with rough edges and an undefined shape. Pantaliamon could hardly believe what he had created: he had started to tear a window into another world.  
  
*****  
  
A/N: Sorry if it's a bit of a cliffhanger. If I add on, like I said, it won't be soon, because I haven't worked on it for ages . . . but review anyway! 


End file.
